What the f is wrong with you? Seriously? The NCAA’s goal isn’t to serve young US athletes, it’s to “to provide a world-class athletics and academic experience for student-athletes that fosters lifelong well-being.” Inclusion and diversity is of utmost importance, as well as academics. Coach Smith is providing that within the rules set by the NCAA. If you have a problem, go and enact change to make the NCAA more exclusive to US athletes. This is so much different than the European clubs that I won’t even stsrt there.
By your own definition of focusing on academics, the NCAA is failing. They are admitting bad students from foreign countries and they don't even speak English.
The priority is winning and making NIL money, not academics.
These Kenyans don't even understand basic things like run in between the lines in XC, don't go over the lines and past the hay bales LMAO.
By your own definition the NCAA is all screwed up and needs fixing.
By the way, 83% foreigners and 17% Americans is not very diverse. This Americans are the "minority" and we need more of them.
Ignore the snowflake. He's not American and therefore he has no standing in this conversation.
Thought the fast women newsletter had good, productive, dialogue on this:
"And when people talk about the number of international athletes in the NCAA, they generally aren’t complaining about the number of athletes from Great Britain, Canada, or New Zealand. They’re usually talking about the number of Kenyan athletes."
"So I think it is important for the conversations about the topic to be nuanced, and that the people who have the power to change the rules focus on the things like eligibility rules, the use of recruiting services, and doping instead of attacking athletes and/or coaches who are operating within the rules and assuming all Kenyans are “over-age” or are doping (and that Americans aren’t)."
I tend to agree that people are much more vocal because of the countries that are dominating international recruiting in this moment. My undergrad has been famous for recruiting/developing runners from Ireland/New Zealand/Australia for decades & nobody has seemed to care. Dave Smith made some good points too: “It bothers me when we call Brian Musau a foreigner or Alex Maier an American,” Smith continued. “It’s Alex and Brian. And they’re guys on the team, they get along, they’re friends, they support each other, they root for each other, they go through hell together, they suffer together… And it didn’t matter what color their skin was, what language they spoke, what god they worshipped, who they loved, or what side of a line they were born on. They were in Stillwater together, chasing a common goal. And this idea that we need to try to divide people…that’s part of what our problem is as a society.”
Be productive & go after the rules instead of focusing on the athletes, which can certainly drum up some feelings attached to race. Also, there are so many other problems in the NCAA that don't get discussed. NIL has had an impact this year. A lot of schools that had invested in runners & helped them develop lost runners to bigger schools. That kind of thing really only used to be reserved for grad transfers. It's as much of a problem as anything else & wasn't really discussed much this season.
Thought the fast women newsletter had good, productive, dialogue on this:
"And when people talk about the number of international athletes in the NCAA, they generally aren’t complaining about the number of athletes from Great Britain, Canada, or New Zealand. They’re usually talking about the number of Kenyan athletes."
"So I think it is important for the conversations about the topic to be nuanced, and that the people who have the power to change the rules focus on the things like eligibility rules, the use of recruiting services, and doping instead of attacking athletes and/or coaches who are operating within the rules and assuming all Kenyans are “over-age” or are doping (and that Americans aren’t)."
I tend to agree that people are much more vocal because of the countries that are dominating international recruiting in this moment. My undergrad has been famous for recruiting/developing runners from Ireland/New Zealand/Australia for decades & nobody has seemed to care. Dave Smith made some good points too: “It bothers me when we call Brian Musau a foreigner or Alex Maier an American,” Smith continued. “It’s Alex and Brian. And they’re guys on the team, they get along, they’re friends, they support each other, they root for each other, they go through hell together, they suffer together… And it didn’t matter what color their skin was, what language they spoke, what god they worshipped, who they loved, or what side of a line they were born on. They were in Stillwater together, chasing a common goal. And this idea that we need to try to divide people…that’s part of what our problem is as a society.”
Be productive & go after the rules instead of focusing on the athletes, which can certainly drum up some feelings attached to race. Also, there are so many other problems in the NCAA that don't get discussed. NIL has had an impact this year. A lot of schools that had invested in runners & helped them develop lost runners to bigger schools. That kind of thing really only used to be reserved for grad transfers. It's as much of a problem as anything else & wasn't really discussed much this season.
I've said it before - Kenyans are more "noticeable" as international athletes.
Compared to Irish or NZ distance runners at Providence named "Buckley", "Currie", or "Galvin" (just looking at the first few women on the roster), or Jamaican sprinters at Arkansas named "Campbell", "Marshall", or "Taylor", a team or individuals with last names "Kiprop", "Kipchoge", or "Kipngetich", the last one is far more noticeable. When people can almost immediately see they're international, people will be more likely to want to reduce their numbers
Thought the fast women newsletter had good, productive, dialogue on this:
"And when people talk about the number of international athletes in the NCAA, they generally aren’t complaining about the number of athletes from Great Britain, Canada, or New Zealand. They’re usually talking about the number of Kenyan athletes."
"So I think it is important for the conversations about the topic to be nuanced, and that the people who have the power to change the rules focus on the things like eligibility rules, the use of recruiting services, and doping instead of attacking athletes and/or coaches who are operating within the rules and assuming all Kenyans are “over-age” or are doping (and that Americans aren’t)."
I tend to agree that people are much more vocal because of the countries that are dominating international recruiting in this moment. My undergrad has been famous for recruiting/developing runners from Ireland/New Zealand/Australia for decades & nobody has seemed to care. Dave Smith made some good points too: “It bothers me when we call Brian Musau a foreigner or Alex Maier an American,” Smith continued. “It’s Alex and Brian. And they’re guys on the team, they get along, they’re friends, they support each other, they root for each other, they go through hell together, they suffer together… And it didn’t matter what color their skin was, what language they spoke, what god they worshipped, who they loved, or what side of a line they were born on. They were in Stillwater together, chasing a common goal. And this idea that we need to try to divide people…that’s part of what our problem is as a society.”
Be productive & go after the rules instead of focusing on the athletes, which can certainly drum up some feelings attached to race. Also, there are so many other problems in the NCAA that don't get discussed. NIL has had an impact this year. A lot of schools that had invested in runners & helped them develop lost runners to bigger schools. That kind of thing really only used to be reserved for grad transfers. It's as much of a problem as anything else & wasn't really discussed much this season.
Very good post.
The system should be part of a college education. It should serve the students well and set them up for the rest of their life, not exploit them. It should be fair. And, I think, it should develop American talent for the pro stage. but knee jerk and xenophobic reactions won’t fix this
This is F***ing ridiculous, 25 of the top 30 finishers in the Men's XC NCAA Championship were international. Most from Kenya. We need to save the NCAA and limit internationals, limit the ages - and drug test them.
Take a look at the popularity of the NXR meets and soon the NXN meet. They have far more interest and investment than the NCAA meet. Think about what is possible.
There had to be 10,000 fans there yesterday. Seemed like more than in Madison the year before. Clearly more popular than the NXR/NXN meets.
That said, happy for the NXN platform..as it is helping with a growing popularity in the sport…perhaps a resurgence of sorts.
NXR SW probably had 2-3 times the attendance (I doubt your 10,000 figure). Most from out of state. I can’t think of a XC meet that had more than the year they hosted USATF XC in Boulder.
Thought the fast women newsletter had good, productive, dialogue on this:
"And when people talk about the number of international athletes in the NCAA, they generally aren’t complaining about the number of athletes from Great Britain, Canada, or New Zealand. They’re usually talking about the number of Kenyan athletes."
"So I think it is important for the conversations about the topic to be nuanced, and that the people who have the power to change the rules focus on the things like eligibility rules, the use of recruiting services, and doping instead of attacking athletes and/or coaches who are operating within the rules and assuming all Kenyans are “over-age” or are doping (and that Americans aren’t)."
I tend to agree that people are much more vocal because of the countries that are dominating international recruiting in this moment. My undergrad has been famous for recruiting/developing runners from Ireland/New Zealand/Australia for decades & nobody has seemed to care. Dave Smith made some good points too: “It bothers me when we call Brian Musau a foreigner or Alex Maier an American,” Smith continued. “It’s Alex and Brian. And they’re guys on the team, they get along, they’re friends, they support each other, they root for each other, they go through hell together, they suffer together… And it didn’t matter what color their skin was, what language they spoke, what god they worshipped, who they loved, or what side of a line they were born on. They were in Stillwater together, chasing a common goal. And this idea that we need to try to divide people…that’s part of what our problem is as a society.”
Be productive & go after the rules instead of focusing on the athletes, which can certainly drum up some feelings attached to race. Also, there are so many other problems in the NCAA that don't get discussed. NIL has had an impact this year. A lot of schools that had invested in runners & helped them develop lost runners to bigger schools. That kind of thing really only used to be reserved for grad transfers. It's as much of a problem as anything else & wasn't really discussed much this season.
Smith’s comment was justification for ordering athletes like mail order brides. Should there ever be a change to the rules that allow him to do that, it certainly should apply to all international athletes equally. But it’s silly to act as if there are not very specific trends and concerns when it comes to a place like Kenya. My guess is that more of the athletes coming from, as you noted, Ireland/New Zealand/Australia also arrive with a mastery of English, better prepared to be actual students, and likely graduate at higher rates.
By your own definition of focusing on academics, the NCAA is failing. They are admitting bad students from foreign countries and they don't even speak English.
The priority is winning and making NIL money, not academics.
These Kenyans don't even understand basic things like run in between the lines in XC, don't go over the lines and past the hay bales LMAO.
By your own definition the NCAA is all screwed up and needs fixing.
By the way, 83% foreigners and 17% Americans is not very diverse. This Americans are the "minority" and we need more of them.
Listen dude, if you have the evidence showing this, then go out and try to enact that change. Otherwise, nobody will care. Dave Smith’s trophy doesn’t give a sh*t.
True, but to be fair, no one at osu “gives a sh*t” either.
What I think is lost in all of this discourse is that the NCAA doesn't have to be an Olympic medalist factory. I agree it sucks to see so few Americans at the top of NCAA XC but what's worse to me is that opportunities for fantastic HS Americans (who aren't going to be All Americans or pro runners) to compete in college are disappearing. When you follow the sport from a distance it's easy to become acclimated to the elite talents at the top but there are hundreds/thousands of truly fantastic runners out there who could be on NCAA teams and in conferences where they could have meaningful individual and team competitions against their peers without any pretention of going pro after college. Everyone on here says "just go D2/D3" but D3 has no scholarships and typically exorbitant tuition and D2 schools are just not academically competitive with D1/3 and are often smaller rural schools. That is fine and those schools are great fits for many athletes but I would have been miserable at any of the D2 schools around where I grew up (even though there were great teams and I was sometimes jealous when I'd see conference results from a bunch of guys I raced/knew of in HS who had a few more years to train seriously and race each other in college).
It's a loss to see those types of situations disappearing from the sport as colleges chase bigger conferences and football/basketball revenue. Even what might be "mid major" teams have significantly upped their international recruiting efforts. I don't think it's wrong for foreign athletes to want to run in the US but where are US runners who love the sport and are better than 98% of their HS peers supposed to go to continue competing in college? Those opportunities simply do not exist in adult life and now they're disappearing from college for most runners.
The sport can't just be about "getting to the next level" when 99.999999% of athletes who love the sport won't get there. What happened to competition for the sake of representing a team and challenging yourself against comparable peers? There are incredible and rewarding levels of competition that were never be talked about on LRC or by any of the running news publications but are remembered fondly by those who were involved and loved it.
The real complaint I see legitimacy too is: should taxpayer funded athletic scholarships at public universities go to foreign students, when they primary point is to develop U.S. talent? That maybe should be given some thought.
The primary point of a collegiate scholarship is to develop talent? Apparently we are so far gone from what college sports are suppose to be that people dont even know why they are there.
This feels pretty whiny. All the athletes who come from other countries enrich our universities and colleges with their talent and intelligence. If they are better runners than "us", then "we" should try and improve. Connor Mantz was 24 when he won his first and 25 when he won his second so, unless you expressed a problem with that, then why express a problem when Kenyans are invited to run here who haven't had the same opportunities in education as we have? How about we stop thinking of it as "us and them" and start thinking of it as "We are all in this together (the whole world)"?
This is F***ing ridiculous, 25 of the top 30 finishers in the Men's XC NCAA Championship were international. Most from Kenya. We need to save the NCAA and limit internationals, limit the ages - and drug test them.
Top Americans:
2nd - Rocky Hansen
7th - Gary Martin
16th - Colin Sahlman
25th - Aiden Smith
28th - Ethan Coleman
Runners World just wrote about people cutting the course (by about 1 foot on the video) and no mention of the giant foreigner controversy. These are not the same NIL forces at play in football. This is bringing in people from east africa that are good enough for national teams.
Everyone just needs to give this particular issue a rest.
There is so much wrong with college athletics it's stupid. This is just one super minor issue on a list of many.
Non-revenue sports are in trouble as a whole and it's not because of international athletes.
Not only that there is nothing any of us can do about it.
feels like the opposite? The NCAA championships is american colleges, not a sub elite international diamond league xc race. I think it was less of an issue when it was one here or there. Where are we going with this? All international meet with a few americans? If thats what we want then you are correct.
What I think is lost in all of this discourse is that the NCAA doesn't have to be an Olympic medalist factory. I agree it sucks to see so few Americans at the top of NCAA XC but what's worse to me is that opportunities for fantastic HS Americans (who aren't going to be All Americans or pro runners) to compete in college are disappearing. When you follow the sport from a distance it's easy to become acclimated to the elite talents at the top but there are hundreds/thousands of truly fantastic runners out there who could be on NCAA teams and in conferences where they could have meaningful individual and team competitions against their peers without any pretention of going pro after college. Everyone on here says "just go D2/D3" but D3 has no scholarships and typically exorbitant tuition and D2 schools are just not academically competitive with D1/3 and are often smaller rural schools. That is fine and those schools are great fits for many athletes but I would have been miserable at any of the D2 schools around where I grew up (even though there were great teams and I was sometimes jealous when I'd see conference results from a bunch of guys I raced/knew of in HS who had a few more years to train seriously and race each other in college).
It's a loss to see those types of situations disappearing from the sport as colleges chase bigger conferences and football/basketball revenue. Even what might be "mid major" teams have significantly upped their international recruiting efforts. I don't think it's wrong for foreign athletes to want to run in the US but where are US runners who love the sport and are better than 98% of their HS peers supposed to go to continue competing in college? Those opportunities simply do not exist in adult life and now they're disappearing from college for most runners.
The sport can't just be about "getting to the next level" when 99.999999% of athletes who love the sport won't get there. What happened to competition for the sake of representing a team and challenging yourself against comparable peers? There are incredible and rewarding levels of competition that were never be talked about on LRC or by any of the running news publications but are remembered fondly by those who were involved and loved it.
Then we should be focusing on the total number of scholarships given to American students in all D1 and D2 schools, and not the top 30 in NCAA Championship.
Thought the fast women newsletter had good, productive, dialogue on this:
"And when people talk about the number of international athletes in the NCAA, they generally aren’t complaining about the number of athletes from Great Britain, Canada, or New Zealand. They’re usually talking about the number of Kenyan athletes."
"So I think it is important for the conversations about the topic to be nuanced, and that the people who have the power to change the rules focus on the things like eligibility rules, the use of recruiting services, and doping instead of attacking athletes and/or coaches who are operating within the rules and assuming all Kenyans are “over-age” or are doping (and that Americans aren’t)."
I tend to agree that people are much more vocal because of the countries that are dominating international recruiting in this moment. My undergrad has been famous for recruiting/developing runners from Ireland/New Zealand/Australia for decades & nobody has seemed to care. Dave Smith made some good points too: “It bothers me when we call Brian Musau a foreigner or Alex Maier an American,” Smith continued. “It’s Alex and Brian. And they’re guys on the team, they get along, they’re friends, they support each other, they root for each other, they go through hell together, they suffer together… And it didn’t matter what color their skin was, what language they spoke, what god they worshipped, who they loved, or what side of a line they were born on. They were in Stillwater together, chasing a common goal. And this idea that we need to try to divide people…that’s part of what our problem is as a society.”
Be productive & go after the rules instead of focusing on the athletes, which can certainly drum up some feelings attached to race. Also, there are so many other problems in the NCAA that don't get discussed. NIL has had an impact this year. A lot of schools that had invested in runners & helped them develop lost runners to bigger schools. That kind of thing really only used to be reserved for grad transfers. It's as much of a problem as anything else & wasn't really discussed much this season.
Very good post.
The system should be part of a college education. It should serve the students well and set them up for the rest of their life, not exploit them. It should be fair. And, I think, it should develop American talent for the pro stage. but knee jerk and xenophobic reactions won’t fix this
Mildly disingenuous of her. The rando NZ or Irish kid was just kind of tolerated I guess for years. This is becoming a full blown epidemic and they are of course winning.........the majority being from another country AND, yes east africa has a bit more of an issue with doping, AND age issues. So her opinion is not relevant and at worst dishonest today.
What is going on today isnt even remotely the same.
Everyone just needs to give this particular issue a rest.
There is so much wrong with college athletics it's stupid. This is just one super minor issue on a list of many.
Non-revenue sports are in trouble as a whole and it's not because of international athletes.
Not only that there is nothing any of us can do about it.
feels like the opposite? The NCAA championships is american colleges, not a sub elite international diamond league xc race. I think it was less of an issue when it was one here or there. Where are we going with this? All international meet with a few americans? If thats what we want then you are correct.
what feels like the opposite? if there were no international athletes running XC, all the problems surronding college athletics would be solved??
look, revenue share is a real thing. and there are like 60-70 schools who are going to be able deal with it. (excluding the ivys, since they don't need to play that game)... where do you think that reveune sharing money is coming from?? ->>> non-revenue sports.
it's not a matter of what i want... it's about what's going to happen...
the good thing for you i suppose is that when most schools go to club or the d3 model ... those folks won't be paying international athletes to come run for their schools. so you got that going for you!
This feels pretty whiny. All the athletes who come from other countries enrich our universities and colleges with their talent and intelligence. If they are better runners than "us", then "we" should try and improve. Connor Mantz was 24 when he won his first and 25 when he won his second so, unless you expressed a problem with that, then why express a problem when Kenyans are invited to run here who haven't had the same opportunities in education as we have? How about we stop thinking of it as "us and them" and start thinking of it as "We are all in this together (the whole world)"?
Some interesting points - but yes, I do think a 25 yr old from anywhere is an issue. Certainly it’s permissible under the rules, but it feels ridiculous. I’m not sure how people (from anywhere) are enriching us with their intelligence if their English is poor and they are not really able to benefit from the education because they were not academically prepared for college in the US. I don’t care where you are from, but if you are being imported under the guise of “opportunities in education”, then you should be able to actually have success in the education piece. I don’t think most of what we are talking about here is actually people who are using running as a way to get a college degree in the US. I’ve seen too many taking nonsense classes that they can barely pass because they are here to run. They just have to be a “student” to run here. FWIW - I think 6th, 7th, etc. year football players are ridiculous, too. And I would guess 99.99% of them are from the US.